The Blessed Virgin Mary appears to Angela of Foligno

January 31: Apparition of Our Lady to Blessed Angela de Foligno (1285)

Blessed Angela of Foligno was born
in 1248 of a prominent family in Foligno, three leagues from Assisi. As a young
woman, and also as a wife and mother, she lived only for the world and its vain
pleasures. But the grace of God intended to make of her a vessel of election
for the comfort and salvation of many. A ray of the divine mercy touched her
soul and so strongly affected her as to bring about a conversion.

At the command of her confessor,
Blessed Angela of Foligno committed to writing the manner of her conversion in
eighteen spiritual steps.

"Enlightened by grace,"
Blessed Angela of Foligno wrote in this account. "I realized my
sinfulness; I was seized with a great fear of being damned, and I shed a flood
of tears. I went to confession to be relieved of my sins, but through shame I
concealed the most grievous ones, but still I went to Communion. Now my
conscience tortured me day and night. I called upon St. Francis for help, and,
moved by an inner impulse, I went into a church where a Franciscan Father was
then preaching. It is reported that in the year 1285 she had a vision of both
the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Francis of Assisi, who called her to penance.

"I gathered courage to confess
all my sins to him, and I did this immediately after the sermon. With zeal and
perseverance I performed the penance he imposed, but my heart continued to be
full of bitterness and shame. I recognized that the divine mercy has saved me
from hell, hence I resolved to do rigorous penance; nothing seemed too
difficult for me, because I felt I belonged in hell. I called upon the saints,
and especially upon the Blessed Virgin, to intercede with God for me.

The Blessed Virgin Mary appears to Angela of Foligno:

"It appeared to me now as if
they had compassion on me, and I felt the fire of divine love enkindled within
me so that I could pray as I never prayed before. I had also received a special
grace to contemplate the cross in which Christ had suffered so much for my
sins. Sorrow, love, and the desire to sacrifice everything for Him filled my
soul."

About this time God harkened to the
earnest desire of the penitent: her mother died, then her husband, and soon
afterwards all her children. These tragic events were very painful to her; but
she made the sacrifice with resignation to the will of God. Being freed from
these ties, she dispossessed herself of all her temporal goods with the consent
of her confessor, a Franciscan friar named Arnoldo, so that being poor herself,
she might walk in the footsteps of her poor Savior. It was to Arnoldo what she
dictated her account of her conversion, now known as the ‘Memoriale,’ or the
‘Book of Visions and Instructions.’

She also entered the Third Order of
St. Francis, and presently found herself the superior and guide of others who
followed in her path. Many women joined her, even to the point of taking the
three vows. She encouraged them in works of charity, in nursing the sick, and
in going personally from door to door to beg for the needs of the poor.

Meanwhile, Angela became still more
immersed in the contemplation of the Passion of Christ, and she chose the
Sorrowful Mother and the faithful disciple John as her patrons. The sight of
the wounds which her Lord suffered for her sins urged her to the practice of
still greater austerities. Once Our Lord showed her that His Heart is a safe
refuge in all the storms of life. She was soon to be in need of such a refuge.
God permitted her to be afflicted with severe temptations. The most horrible
and loathsome representations distressed her soul.

The fire of concupiscence raged so
furiously that she said:

"I would rather have beheld
myself surrounded with flames and permitted myself to be continually roasted
that to endure such things."

Still, she called out to God,

"Glory be to Thee, O Lord! Thy
cross is my resting place."

These painful trials lasted over two
years; but then the purified and tried servant of the Lord was filled with
great consolation. She obtained a marvelous insight into divine things and was
very frequently found in ecstasy. For a time she had the stigmata, and for many
years Holy Communion was her only food, until at last, completely purified, she
entered into the eternal joy of the Supreme Good on January 4, 1310.

Pope Innocent XII approved the
continual devotion paid to her at her tomb in Foligno, where many miracles were
attributed to her. He beatified her in 1693.

Blessed Angela of Foligno said,

"To know oneself and to know
God, that is the perfection of man; without this knowledge, visions and the
greatest gifts are of no account."

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